{"id":147293,"date":"2015-07-11T00:26:26","date_gmt":"2015-07-10T18:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=147293"},"modified":"2015-07-11T00:26:26","modified_gmt":"2015-07-10T18:56:26","slug":"unp-to-contest-as-united-national-front-decision-to-be-announced-at-party-convention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/unp-to-contest-as-united-national-front-decision-to-be-announced-at-party-convention\/","title":{"rendered":"UNP To Contest As &#8216;United National Front&#8217;: Decision To Be Announced At Party Convention"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The United National Party has decided to contest the Parliamentary election as the United National Front to accommodate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Champika+Ranawaka&amp;x=13&amp;y=3\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Champika Ranawaka<\/span><\/a> and other ex-UPFA MPs contesting under the party ticket, Colombo Telegraph learns.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Ranil-Wickremesinghe-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-97012\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Ranil-Wickremesinghe-1-300x210.jpg\" alt=\"Ranil Wickremesinghe 1\" width=\"300\" height=\"210\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Ranil-Wickremesinghe-1-300x210.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Ranil-Wickremesinghe-1-800x560.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Ranil-Wickremesinghe-1.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>According to sources close to the Prime Minster <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Ranil+Wickremesinge&amp;x=15&amp;y=4\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Ranil Wickeremesinghe<\/span><\/a>, nearly 13 ex-UPFA MPs have held discussions with the UNP to contest as a common front at the Parliamentary election against former President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Mahinda+Rajapaksa&amp;x=12&amp;y=4\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/span><\/a>. The group include the large majority of SLFP stalwarts who supported President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Maithripala+Sirisena&amp;x=12&amp;y=8\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Maithripala Sirisena<\/span><\/a> at the Presidential election in January. Several senior MPs who supported former President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the Parliamentary election had also held discussions to join the &#8220;good governance&#8221; front.<\/p>\n<p>Among them are S.B. Dissanayake, Reginald Cooray, Piyasena Gamage and Dr. Sudarshini Fernandopully, Colombo Telegraph learns. Provincial Councilor Hirunika Premachandra, who received nominations from the UPFA is also expected to join the &#8220;good governance&#8221; front.<\/p>\n<p>The theme of their election campaign will be protecting and strengthening the people&#8217;s mandate expressed at the residential election on January 08.<\/p>\n<p>The new alliance will be announced at the UNP convention scheduled to take place today in Colombo. The &#8216;good governance&#8217; will have a meeting with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe tomorrow morning, before the UNP convention, the party sources told Colombo Telegraph.<\/p>\n<p>Political sources said the UPFA group had already informed President Maithripala Sirisena of their decision.<\/p>\n<p>The UNP has already decided to contest the election under its traditional symbol &#8216;elephant&#8217;. Therefore, the new group too will have to contest under the elephant symbol of the UNP.<\/p>\n<p>Political observers say President Maithripala Sirisena will be compelled to support the good governance front at the Parliamentary election as all his close supporters have aligned themselves with the UNP-led alliance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":97012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1,6980,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-news","category-sri-lanka-parliamentary-elections-2015","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>UNP To Contest As &#039;United National Front&#039;: Decision To Be Announced At Party Convention - 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